


The Otherworld

by tehmoonofficial



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, No Incest, Vanya's book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 00:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21437557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehmoonofficial/pseuds/tehmoonofficial
Summary: Ben’s death isn't as nice as you think it is.Oh, no, I know you think it’s bad. You think that one day, he left for a mission and never came back. But it’s nothing as simple as that. It’s complicated, like everything else in that godforsaken house.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Everyone, Vanya Hargreeves & Everyone
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52





	The Otherworld

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright © 2014 by Vanya Hargreeves  
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof  
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever  
without the express written permission of the publisher  
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
> 
> Printed in the United States of America
> 
> First Printing, 2014
> 
> ISBN 1-0430360-0-7

_ Excerpt from Extra Ordinary by Vanya Hargreeves__._

It’s not as nice as you think it is. 

Oh, no, I know you think it’s bad. You think that one day, he left for a mission and never came back. But it’s nothing as simple as that. It’s complicated, like everything else in that godforsaken house. Simple on the surface, tumultuous underneath. Still waters run deep, as they say. 

Like the personalities interviewed in teen magazines, what you’ve heard is a caricature of reality. Dad didn’t even announce Ben’s death until his absence was asked about after a particularly important mission.  
  
I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember how Dad declared my brother’s death to be unimportant to the wellbeing of the world. It was that easy for him---another child soldier to stop training. One less to break until they couldn’t handle it anymore. Six moves down to five. And yet the ranks never adjust; I never move up to sixth. If this is a competition, there’s no winner. Not even Luther is achieving what he’s after. Dad’s love continues to be a trophy locked away in a glass case, impossible to reach. The game is rigged. 

Ben realized that too late. 

Number Six wasn’t the position that anyone else wanted to be. Before we turned ten, the order changed all the time. If one of my brothers or sisters discovered a new way to use their power, they moved up a number. If they disobeyed one day, they moved down. But never me. I stayed dead last at seventh place. The worst place to be. In Dad’s eyes, and in my siblings’. 

There was shouting, screaming, then a noise that sounded like nothing on this Earth. It was 2005. 

We all knew the numbering was fixed. There wasn’t any way to change it. Yet, time and time again, we tried to please Dad. From saving the world to posing for a new action figure to playing a concerto, it was for him. _ Is _ , in the case of Luther. Funnily enough, he has the same reaction to it all. A cold, scrutinous expression, followed by a silent nod and a “You are dismissed.” Ben figured out a foolproof way to please him. A way that was _ sure _to succeed in getting as much as a smile. 

Ben’s powers were much, much more than we ever thought.

You knew him as The Horror---the too quiet, too blood-covered member of the mysterious Umbrella Academy. I knew him as Ben---the shy, book-loving brother with a permanent stomachache. 

See, that’s the thing about his powers. They never quite left. 

Let me explain. You and I both saw his powers as a squid living inside his stomach. Maybe, there was a void it grew out from. Maybe, it was all alone there, only appearing when Ben summoned it. 

We were wrong.

Ben was the bridge between our world and another. One full of terror, brutality, and hatred. The other one full of monsters. He linked the two worlds together, and could create a portal to either with an immense amount of energy and strength. Two entire universes, and he was the only one that could access both. 

It was an ability that showed up one day during training. His training with Dad was always secluded; never where any of the others could see it. In a way, he was as isolated as me. Ben would arrive in the house from training, looking shell-shocked with a thousand-mile-stare, and march silently to his room. 

Everyone is fighting their own battle, but Ben was fighting a _ war _.

Autumn of 2005 was the first time I was invited to a group training session. The night before the big day, I couldn’t sleep for hours. When I finally drifted off, I dreamt of finally being allowed to be near my siblings. I think that was one of the only mornings I forgot to take my anxiety medicine. The day was chilly, but still fair for that time of year. Treetops were starting to melt into vibrant oranges and reds. It rained the morning of the session. Everyone but Diego had an umbrella. Klaus had managed to get his hands on one with an eye-straining yellow and green plaid. I still remember the way he grinned when Dad told him to replace it with a plain black one at once.

Ben was special, Dad said. Allison replied that we were _ all _ special, obviously. He glared while telling her to watch her wording. Mortified, I tried to run, but Mom stopped me. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have missed what happened next. 

Dad continued on to explain how “Number Six was a peculiar case of a _ human _.” The word felt unnatural coming from him, somehow. Like it didn’t belong there. His face wrenched up like the name was bitter. He revealed that Ben’s access to a squid wasn’t the only thing he could do.

I could feel the tension in the air. My siblings, sans Ben, and I held our breath in suspense so we wouldn’t miss a word of what Dad said with a potential gasp of air.

“Nietzche professes of a tightrope between man and animal.” Dad’s rough voice announced. “Number Six is that tightrope.”

Silence was thicker than lead at that moment. The only sound must have been our six heartbeats, which I could _ just _ manage to hear. 

“He will now demonstrate the dedication that he has shown throughout his training.” 

Before Dad said that, Ben seemed to glow under all the attention. Now, he shriveled like a dying plant. 

“Now, Number Six,” urged Dad.

Ben, sixteen, had the look in his eye of a child afraid of the dark. But if there’s anything we learned in this house, it’s that the biggest monstrosity has his own wing of the mansion. Ben took a deep breath, readied himself, and then---

It’s hard to explain.

You know when you see something, and can replay it perfectly in your mind, but can’t grasp the words to say it?

It was like he flushed himself out of the world. There was a set point in the air, invisible to all of us, and Ben folded himself like paper into the point, twisting and turning like origami—but he shrunk, too, like a cotton sweater in a dryer. He squeezed into nothing in a second that felt like a shock-filled hour. The seconds that followed were even longer.

Diego screamed something like, “Where did he go?!”. Dad, with the authority of a general, roared back, _“QUIET!” _

A sound like velcro ripping apart filled the courtyard. The earth dully shook under our feet, and a few of us struggled to keep our balance. Then, a coin-shaped hole popped into existence. The hole was black, and it hovered in midair. Ben folded back out of it, like what had happened a minute ago, but reversed. 

Ben gasped for air and bent over on himself, covered in sweat. He shuddered, arms wrapped around his chest. At first, I didn’t realize that he held something. Dad had ordered Ben to bring something back from the other world---something to show his promise to us. 

His arms collapsed, letting go of the creature he held. It was a worm, but bigger, and spiky. The spikes seemed _ soft _, and the white eyes on either side of its arrowhead-shaped face almost seemed beckoning. The monster had the mouth of a turtle, toothless and turning into a pointed beak at the end. The entire creature was pink like bubblegum. It wiggled away into the bushes like a snake just learning to move. 

Ben continued to try to regain his air. I still remember how pale and queasy he looked, but Dad did nothing to help. Neither did Mom, not until a lot later. Not yet.

“Holy shit,” someone whispered under their breath. I think it was Klaus. 

“Language,” Pogo reminded. Before this, he was silent. Observing. Some days, I still wonder which secrets he knows that Dad never told the rest of us. 

We stared, transfixed at the creature Ben brought back from seemingly nowhere. 

“The world is a lot bigger than you previously thought,” Dad began. I could feel the internal groan from Diego---out of all of us, he was the one that hated Dad’s lectures the most. Except for Five, of course, who I haven’t seen in over a decade. I don’t know if he’s still out there somewhere. Most of my siblings think he’s long-dead. They’re probably right. I’ll write more about that in a future chapter. 

As the worm-like monster disappeared from sight, Dad continued to speak. “You are well-acquainted with Planet Earth. You do _ not _know of the myriad of other civilizations, entire universes, out of our reach.” 

Klaus helped Ben up from his spot on the cold dirt. Dad paused, his eyes boring into Klaus’ skull as he helped his brother over to the courtyard’s bench.

“That is, they were out of our reach until today. Number Six has honed his powers to a point where he can travel freely between two universes. He will continue to develop this ability. I implore you to find as many new connections with your powers as you can.” 

He turned to me at this point. I felt like I could have folded in on myself, as Ben had minutes ago. 

“Of course, there are _ obvious exceptions _ for those among us that do not have the capacity to develop _ any _abilities.” 

My eyes welled up with tears. At that instant, rather than have me charge off and possibly make him seem less in-control, he told us we were all dismissed from training for the rest of the day. Everyone ran in separate directions. I headed to my room, and I remember laying in bed for hours, hoping Mom or Pogo would show up to comfort me. But they didn’t, and I stared at the ceiling for three hours.

Months passed slowly. I could tell that my brothers and sisters were starting to get antsy about leaving. Our birthday came and left. Now, we were a year away from eighteen. To us, that meant a year away from freedom. None of us knew our goodbyes would be so soon. October turns into November turns into December, and the calendars change from one year to the next in January. 

As Luther acted like more of a commanding figure, Diego reverted into a rude personality that could only be a coping mechanism, Allison spent her time fraternizing with movie stars and playing dollhouse in real life, and Klaus let the world fall away with drugs. Ben grew quieter and quieter. The blackened bags under his eyes grew deeper and deeper. He got weaker with the repeated use of his powers, but no one cared. Especially not Dad, who forced him once a week to push the very limits of what he could handle. The rest of the week, Ben locked himself away in his room, Mom flitting in and out with various medicines to keep him as healthy as possible. The possibility whittled away, until he couldn’t even go on missions at the end. But he didn’t leave us quietly. His death wasn’t like stepping down into the tide---no, it was a cannonball. 

Snow fell lightly from grey clouds. The cold air was windless. It was the fifteenth of January, a Sunday none of us would ever forget. It started the same way every day began---with our alarm clocks ringing in unison at sharply six A.M. All six of us rose from bed and scrambled around the house to get ready for the day. Now, I have to laugh at how average the routine was. Six teenagers that had powers previously thought impossible brushed their teeth, and put on the same clothes every day. Soon to be five teenagers. Then less, as we moved out in droves. 

Mom rang a bell and we travelled downstairs to eat breakfast. That day, we had hashbrowns, bacon, and eggs. An out-of-the-ordinary meal for us, but typical for anyone else. Normally, the meals rotated per day. It was supposed to be the day we had oatmeal. Most of us gobbled it down like rabid wolves. Ben wasn’t hungry, he said. 

Dad picked a special record that day. It was a lecture on the “multiple universe theory.” Something Five would have probably loved. It went over my head, but Luther seemed to listen aptly. Either that, or he was pretending to for approval from Dad. Considering the fact that he loved outer space and all sorts of science, it makes sense that Dad sent him on a distant mission. I’m not sure if he still likes that sort of stuff. The last time we talked was at Allison’s wedding, years ago. 

Looking back, the record was an omen of the day to come. 

After eating, Dad stood up from the table first. Mom handed him his coat. It was a black down coat that stopped at his ankles. My siblings and I got ours from a coat stand. They all matched, with the Umbrella Academy crest embroidered in white stitching on the left of the coat. It was directly above the heart, like a pledge. A vow that all but one of us would break.

We all stepped into the courtyard. When I was younger, Dad used to have me help him with taking notes on how my siblings were doing in training. As the years passed, he told me to spend the time practicing my violin instead. I typically did, but this time felt different. So I followed him into the snowy area of the mansion. 

“Number Seven, what are you doing?” Dad’s monocle reflected the pale winter sunlight. 

“I came to help,” I replied. Snow started to fall faster. 

He contemplated for a beat. “Go on, then. Pogo will instruct you on what to do.” 

I rushed over to Pogo. A winter hat with pom-poms at the end of fuzzy strings sat on top of his head. I think Mom made it for him. He held a coiled knitted cord, even longer than the length of the courtyard. 

“Hold onto this, Master Vanya.” He handed me the end with a metal hook on it. I did as he said, then noticed the harness Dad was wearing. It had a loop to match the hook. 

“What’s happening?” I lowered my volume, asking Pogo.

“Master Hargreeves is going to travel into the other world now,” responded Pogo. 

This was _ not _ what I thought I would hear. I opened my mouth to clarify, but Dad took that instant to start training. 

“In 1969, man walked on the Moon for the first time. Much of the populace of Earth thought it impossible to land on Earth’s natural satellite. They were wrong. History was made. Today, history will make itself again.” 

Pogo took my end of the rope back and held it out to Dad. He latched the metal hook through the loop. Dad set his hand down on Ben’s shoulder. My brother’s skin went a few shades paler, despite the cold weather making his cheeks red. 

“We will see you all in five minutes.” Dad declared. His breath was white in the air. He straightened his shoulders, effortlessly slipping into his eccentric adventurer persona. “Number Six,” Dad used Ben’s placement to tell him to activate his powers.

Ben nodded slowly. He brought his knuckles up to rub his eyes, and even that movement seemed hard for him. 

If there’s one thing that I could go back and tell him, it would be “I love you.” He was my brother, and even at the end, when he was only allowed visitors during certain hours, he was brave. He never spoke about his health during that time---no, it was all about the books he got to read and movies he was looking forward to. Looking back, I think he knew he wouldn’t make it to them. But I don’t think he ever knew how he’d go.

The ground started to shake again. It was mild, like it had been all those times before. Then, Ben’s eyebrows drew together, sweat beading on his forehead as he inhaled a sharp breath, then another. The shaking got worse---louder, stronger. Doors rattled on their hinges. Allison fell to the ground, and Luther helped her up. Klaus was dazed at the time; I wonder if he remembers how that day went. 

The wind picked up and the snow got worse, coming down in big, heavy torrents. Not one of us dared to shout, “Make it stop!” like we wanted to. My hair covered my face, and I tried to brush it out of my eyes with numb fingers. 

Then, the coin-sized dot appeared. It was pitch black, like always. Ben’s expression wrenched up into one of concentration and determination, nose wrinkled like a raisin. He was breathing faster and faster, a marathon runner sprinting to the finish line, and then the dot grew bigger. And bigger. And _ bigger _. Snow started to fall into it… no, it was drawn in, like a magnet. I could barely see through the precipitation, but I managed to catch a few details of the dot. It wasn’t a void like we thought. It was a portal. A window into another world. There were vibrant, neon splotches of color that looked like no vegetation I had ever seen before. Whales the color of rocks floated in midair, churning their oar-like fins to coast by. Creatures I don’t have the words for moved on by. The sky was blood red. And this was the Otherworld, through a window the size of a manhole cover, and getting bigger. 

Ben dared to try and stand up for himself, to tell Dad he couldn’t try anymore. He got as far as trying to tug away from him before Dad tightened his grip on my brother’s shoulder.

“A little more, boy!” His voice cut through the winter storm like a machete.

Ben stopped struggling and did as he said, the window now the size of a small boulder. More and more snow fell, and more and more objects flew into the other world. Pogo held onto his hat for dear life.

“_NOW!" _Dad commanded, and stopped standing against the force of the other world. He shot like a bullet into the strange land, Ben dragged with him. Pogo handed the other end of the rope to Luther.

Suddenly, in the instant that Dad and Ben entered the Otherworld, the window closed up with a _ pop _. The wind died, and the snowflakes went back to their light dusting.

Quiet filled the air more than noise ever could.

Luther’s knuckles grew white on the rope.

“Well, where are they?!” Diego interrogated.

“Where are whom, Diego?” Mom asked back, a peaceful smile on her face. 

My pulse pounded like a war drum.

Or a dirge.

Just as fast as the window had closed, it opened up again and spat back out two people. Dad and Ben. Luther let go of the slack rope, partially from shock. Dad was on a knee, looking down at the limp figure collapsed on the snow-covered ground. He stood and unhooked the harness in one fluid movement, turning to address the rest of us.

“He’s dead.” Dad stated, at the same time that we saw the glassy look in our brother’s eyes. The look that stared straight up at the overcast sky. The limp position he laid in. He was seventeen and would never walk again. Never blink, never smile, never go into one of his rambles about what the best crossword puzzles were. Never again.

Dad brushed off his coat with brown, fur-covered gloves. He pulled open the door from the courtyard, and briskly walked inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the fic, and it was angsty enough to kill you like Ben :V  
Come scream at me at @tehmoonofficial on Tumblr!


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